Since I was a young seminary student, I always wondered why the Lord forbade Adam and Eve from taking the fruit when eating the fruit was supposed to happen. Sure there was the explanation of eating the fruit being a transgression and not a sin, but this did not erase my confusion. How can something be a transgression if it is supposed to happen? Once and a while I would bring up this issue in church classes. I got a couple of decent explanations, but nothing that definitively put the issue to rest. That all changed last Sunday in gospel doctrine class. During our classroom discussion on the Fall, someone raised her hand and asked the ubiquitous question: Why were Adam and Eve forbidden to eat the fruit if it was supposed to happen? The teacher dutifully pointed out that it was not a sin, but a transgression. Yet like so many times before, my mild confusion persisted and I consigned myself to the fact that I will never know the answer in this life. Then something significant happened. The teacher went on to explain President Brigham Young’s teaching on the earth moving away from the presence of God after the Fall. I knew about this teaching, but when she said it, a thought came to my mind. The thought was this: The Lord forbade Adam and Eve from taking the fruit because mortal beings cannot exist in His presence. In other words, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it started the process of transforming their bodies into a mortal state and mortal beings are forbidden from being in the Lord’s presence. Thus forbidden refers more to the consequences of eating the fruit than to the act itself. For Adam and Eve to be in that heavenly sphere whilst being mortal was a transgression. Hence the earth was sent to a lower, telestial sphere appropriate for mortal beings. It might help to think of it this way. Adam did not transgress a moral directive from the Lord. He transgressed a law of Heaven which states that mortal beings cannot be in His presence. This concept is consistent with the teaching that mortals who see God must undergo a physical change to withstand His presence. Such was the case with Moses and Joseph Smith. I am grateful that I finally have my answer to this question.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. That makes so much more sense. I'd never understood it and just figured someday after I die someone would explain it properly.

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Chris

1/28/2014 12:33:00 pm

Perhaps we could abandon the idea of literal movement of the earth. The Garden of Eden was, as the temple was and is, where God dwelt on earth. Eating the fruit would cast them out of God's presence, so you still get the "consequential" forbidden-ness without the literalism of BY's reading. So we don't need that extra dimension of literalism, as everything you point out is already present.

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Vader

1/28/2014 03:22:06 pm

Chris,

Well put.

I know a fair amount about the physics of the world we live in. There is a great deal of beauty in the symmetries of the Standard Model of Physics. But it is not the physics of God.

I do not know much about the physics of God. I do not know much about the physics of the Garden of Eden. But it does not seem to be the same physics that appear to have been operative here for the last thirteen billion years.

The Fall moved Adam and Eve from a place where our physics do not apply to a place where the physics are all too familiar. That is Fall enough for me.

I don't find that satisfying, because trangression implies a violation, or, in other words, an 'ought'. But in your account, the law that mortals can't be in God's presence is more like a physical law that simply is a fact than a moral law that one "ought" to obey and can choose to violate. No one can choose to violate the law of gravity.

Your theory can explain how there can be negative consequences attached to a decision without the decision being sinful, but not how the decision can be a 'transgression'

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Rob Osborn

1/28/2014 06:11:37 pm

The fall probably did involve the earth falling away from Gods presence and mans mortal state was also no doubt not a godly state. But the "what and why" of getting to that state is paramount to understanding the fall. There is a misunderstanding of what "transgression" means. There are two types of sin. The first is sinning ignorantly not knowing the law but still being in a wicked act. The second type of sin is when a person knows the law and sins, this type of sin is "transgression".

Adam and Eve were willfully disobedient to law and went against the command of God not to partake of the tree. They gave in to temptation by Satan and by doing such suffered a spiritual death and also became fallen physically (mortal). At this point they both needed repentance and baptism for remission of sins.

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DB

1/29/2014 01:20:58 am

Uh, no. I think the scriptures and the temple endowment explain it pretty clearly. Eating the fruit was a sin (transgression, whatever) because God commanded them not to. It was disobedience to a commandment. Eating the fruit was not sinful, per se, it was the disobedience to God's command that was sinful. So why would God make something they were supposed to do sinful? Because they were supposed to sin. Consider this, they were supposed to eat the fruit, eating the fruit was a sin, therefore they were supposed to sin. Why? So that the plan of salvation could be instituted. The premise of the plan of salvation is the salvation of mankind from sin and death through a savior. Unitl sin and death were introduced into the world, the plan of salvation had to be put on hold. Eating the fruit introduced both sin and death and both were necessary for the plan of salvation.

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Dave S.

1/29/2014 02:21:30 am

Vader,

I agree that the physics of the pre-Fall earth were much different than the physics of the current earth, owing to the idea that before the Fall it was in a different sphere governed by different spiritual and physical laws than what we see today.

I don't know. Like you, I've never felt any kind of coherence with any of the versions put forward on this topic. It comes down to this: Did or did not Adam transgress a law? If so, he sinned. If not, there was no transgression. In other word, the issue is that God intended for Adam to transgress a law... and that's discomforting. Any modifications to this do not do the story justice.

I've long thought of the conflicting commandments in the Garden of Eden in this way (to quote my own article):

“…the reason it appears that God gave Adam and Eve conflicting commandments is because God is too perfect to be ‘well pleased’ with such a course as a fall of man. His spirit children are capable of progressing to Godhood while in the first estate, as has been proven in the case of Christ and the Holy Ghost. So anything less is not in sync with his ultimate perfection, and therefore falls short of his ultimate approval.
“Mankind did not progress to Godhood in the pre-earth life as did Christ. This was because of inadequate use of agency. In other words, the need for a ‘fallen state,’ was man’s own doing, and man’s present condition is that ‘which man had brought upon himself because of his own disobedience,’(Alma 42:12) in the pre-earth state.
“God said of the forbidden fruit, ‘thou shalt not eat of it,’ (Gen. 2:17) in the same function as if he were giving the formal commandment, ‘be ye therefore perfect’ (Matt. 5:48). It is as if God were saying, ‘The perfection in me forbids that you fall and become sinful, because that would be transgression.’ Yet it is God’s will for his children to progress, and a fall of mankind was the only alternative, so he created the conditions sufficient for the fall to happen.
“God did not put Adam and Eve in a position where they would have to partake of the forbidden fruit and become sinful. But rather, all mankind have put themselves in that position in the pre-mortal estate. The reason there are conflicting commandments is purely due to man's own inadequacy. So the fact that there were two commandments which could not both be kept was not God’s fault, but man’s.”
(http://loyaltotheword.synthasite.com/conflicting-commandments-in-the-garden-of-eden.php).

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Dave C.

1/30/2014 06:25:54 am

Thanks for that explanation, Ryan. I have never heard that viewpoint before. It is worth thinking about.

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marion

12/30/2014 02:00:45 am

thank you very much for sharing this......I am embarking on a study of science/lds doctrine and find the whole blog VERY thought provoking and exciting!